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How did you choose your target language? | ||
Tags: Choosing a Language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Billy Bob Diglot Groupie Colombia Joined 5283 days ago 48 posts - 57 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Turkish | Message 137 of 141 02 April 2012 at 1:52am | IP Logged | ||
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Spanish: This is a language that's always been in my life. Back when I was little, I spoke some, only to lose it when my dad and grandma (who only spoke English) told my mom that they didn't want me to speak it, because they thought that my English would be messed up or something. I ended up having to study Spanish at school, but never really went anywhere with it because the classes weren't all that great and I didn't really use it anywhere else. It was only after I moved here and really needed the language for the first time that I made serious progress, and without any classes.
Turkish: I was looking at some different versions of wikipedia, and the Turkish one looked pretty intimidating but interesting. I decided to investigate further, so I checked out some videos on youtube and liked how the language sounded. Next thing I knew, I was looking for resources. Persian: I'm not studying it at the moment, but I originally got into Persian because I had become interested in different writing systems, and I liked the Persian script more than the Arabic one. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5924 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 138 of 141 02 April 2012 at 9:24am | IP Logged | ||
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I responded to this thread before, but that post was written three years ago. Much has changed since then; I have added three more languages, I became more serious about learning Swedish, and I have not continued with Dutch aside from learning a little bit more in January 2011.
The three languages I have added are Italian, Polish and Thai, so I will now list some reasons for learning these languages. Italian: I could give many responses if asked why I chose to learn Italian. The three that come to mind right now are: 1. I have learned some Spanish already and wanted to add another Romance language. 2. I love reading about the various regional cuisines of Italy and would like to use recipes that are written in Italian. 3. I intend to visit Italy sometime within the next 3 or 4 years and I want to speak Italian when I get there. Polish: I also wanted to learn at least one Slavonic language, but thought Russian would be too difficult because of the Cyrillic alphabet, so I chose Polish over Russian. It turns out I'm wrong about the Cyrillic alphabet, it's actually very easy to learn. I have struggled a lot with Polish pronunciation before, but I love how the language sounds, so I will keep learning it. Thai: I was curious about tonal languages and thought Thai would be fun. I was right, it is fun. I also like the alphabet, though I have to admit that I could definitely have learned Cyrillic in far less time and I make many mistakes when trying to copy the shapes of the letters. I am also curious about Thai culture. Edited by mick33 on 02 April 2012 at 9:38am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Maux Diglot Newbie Netherlands Joined 4625 days ago 37 posts - 51 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 139 of 141 02 April 2012 at 9:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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I started learning Mandarin mostly out of interest for the script. There's something about cramming thousands of
characters that screams fun for me. That said, social interaction doesn't always come naturally, and I've also used my studies as an excuse to find people to talk to; both native speakers, as well as through classes. It seems to work. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| languagenerd09 Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom youtube.com/user/Lan Joined 5100 days ago 174 posts - 267 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Mandarin, Japanese, Thai | Message 140 of 141 03 April 2012 at 12:58am | IP Logged | ||
Finnish - At university I made friends with Finnish natives on my course who have taught me basics,especially one of them who has given me lessons on grammar when we had free time before a lesson last semester. Plus they told me types of music to listen to in Finnish :) Russian - I really like music in Russian, especially Yulia Savicheva; so being able to understand some of the lyrics is useful. Plus it's a language that I really like in terms of what I hear being spoken. Portuguese - Simply because of the amount of time I've spoken Spanish plus I had an interest in the language for a while. Norwegian - my friend who lives in Stavanger, but from Sandnessjøen. I went there in December 2010 and I experienced typical means of Norwegian christmas and picked up words whilst I was there, since i've came back I've looked at expanding my knowledge further. Italian - I love this language and again, it's a language that I wouldn't struggle with too much thanks to my Spanish. German - Again, a language I enjoy speaking, plus I have a friend at university who speaks German but is from Luxembourg and sometimes speaking in her native languages is pretty cool Japanese - It's due to my childhood obsession with pokémon and digimon really ... now I really have embraced and fallen in love with the culture and language of Japan itself - not just what they show on TV. Edited by languagenerd09 on 03 April 2012 at 1:00am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| taydev2006 Newbie United States Joined 4865 days ago 7 posts - 7 votes Studies: Spanish, Japanese | Message 141 of 141 18 August 2012 at 4:28am | IP Logged | ||
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I have two target languages; one of them being Spanish. I've always thought the sound
of it is nice, and it's the second most spoken language in my country (United States). I've had many native Spanish speaking friends and co-workers, therefore I think it's best for me to know the language. I also want to visit Spanish speaking countries like Spain, Puerto Rico, and Argentina. Japanese is my other target language, and the one I am most fascinated and obsessed with. I've been intrigued by East Asian cultures for the last 10 years or so, and Japan was the first of my interest. I love most Japanese foods that I've tired so far; I'm in awe of their rich history and architecture, the writing system, and the sound of spoken Japanese--it's very beautiful. It was only about 9 months ago that I got into watching the animated shows from there (with Japanese audio and English subtitles) and reading manga (in English, but would like to read the original Kana & Kanji versions), which motivated me even more so to learn the language. I'm interested in many languages, but the two listed are a priority. I'm prepared to spend many years studying them to gain a comfortable level of proficiency. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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